Bruuuuuce!!

I have no idea how a 60 yr old guy has that much energy but it was amazing to see.
Review from the AJC
http://www.ajc.com/living/content/printedition/2009/04/28/springsteen0428.html

Also found the playlist at Backstreets.com because there was no way to remember the entire night.

April 26 / Atlanta. GA / Philips Arena
Notes: Bruce was a man of many hats tonight—besides the cowboy hat for "Outlaw Pete" there was a white fedora for "Tenth Avenue"—but even more notable was the number of covers: five out of a 25-song set. There was the now-standard sign collection song, "Raise Your Hand," and the encore-opening "Hard Times," of course. And then two requests. First: "They think they're gonna stump the band—but this is the greatest bar band in the land, and if they don't think we know 96 f$*%n' Tears..." Yep, spotlight on the keys for ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears," followed by a bit more common cover (but no less powerful for it), the E Street Band's take on Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped," also a tour premiere.

Bruce wasn't done with the signs yet—a few songs later, after "The Wrestler," he started looking through the crowd for one he'd seen earlier. And there it was: "Alanta's STEENagers deserve Jungleland." They got it, too, after Bruce talked a bit about meeting some young'uns in Freehold who said they had never seen the E Street Band, leading to their current mission. Speaking of teenagers, Jay Weinberg got another one under his belt tonight, not only revisiting the songs he played Friday night in Hartford, but also pounding away on "Land of Hope and Dreams" for the first time—a fabulous job on this one.

Still no Patti—Bruce dedicated "Kingdom of Days" to her once again, and he also gave a shout-out to producer Brendan O'Brien, whose home base is here and who was in the crowd. Bruce was feeling good, feeding off the loud, boisterous crowd, who'd been into it all night, and he had one more treat for them after "American Land." "It ain't over!" And then came that fifth and final cover, the tour's first "Detroit Medley," with Professor Roy Bittan going nuts on the piano, driving the crowd wild and closing the Atlanta show in style.

Setlist:
Badlands
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Outlaw Pete
She's the One
Working on a Dream
Radio Nowhere (w/ Jay Weinberg)
Seeds (w/ Jay Weinberg)
Johnny 99 (w/ Jay Weinberg)
The Ghost of Tom Joad (w/ Jay Weinberg)
Raise Your Hand
96 Tears
Trapped
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The Wrestler
Jungleland
Kingdom of Days
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born to Run
* * *
Hard Times
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Land of Hope and Dreams (w/ Jay Weinberg)
American Land (w/ Jay Weinberg)
Detroit Medley

Noah's Turn

Noah continues to be the most consistent player on the team and this weekend he finally got the Game Ball!! He has deserved it based on his play at any of the last 2-3 games but Saturday, he played really well. He stroked 2 hits off the machine. The first going all way to the center field fence for a long double. Defensively he made 3 nice field plays for outs.

Not to be outdone, Jordan, for the 3rd game in a row made an unassisted double play. There were runners on 1st and 2nd and Jordan, playing 3rd base. The other player hit a grounder right down the 3rd base line. The other team though it would be a foul ball so they did not run. Jordan picked up the ball (fair), tagged the runner at 3rd (out 1 ) and stepped on the bag (out 2)! She also made a great play at shortstop earlier in the game.


As for Cole - he continues to play consistently but unfortunately, the rest of the team does not. They got swept this weekend and outscored 30-16 over 2 games. On the bright side, we have plenty of games this week and hope to turn it around.

Game Ball Weekend

With Spring Break behind us, we are back into full swing (pun) with Baseball. We have had some much rain lately that many of the kids games have been canceled. We are making them up now and it seems like every night is spent at the ball park. This past weekend was nuts. We had 2 games on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. The weather was awesome and although they were a little rusty, it only took a few innings to get back into it.

It was a great weekend for the Schwartz kids. On Saturday, Jordan earned her 1st Game Ball. She had a great game. She got 2 hits but more impressively made an unassisted double play in the field. It was awesome to see. Noah too had a great game as usual also getting 2 hits and making 2 outs in the field

Cole is totally coming into his own. Saturday he had 3 hits including his 1st HR of the season but more impressive was his game Sunday night. He is just flat out ripping the seams off the ball. He was already 3 for 3 with 2 RBI's. The Met's had a 4 run lead when Cole came to the plate in the 6th inning with the bases loaded. Showing patience at the plate, he took the 1st pitch high for a ball. The next pitch was right in his wheelhouse and he launched the ball to straight away center field for a base clearing triple.
It was a great night and a much needed win for his team.

Spring Break 2009 - Disney Style!!

It has been almost 2 years since we did the Disney thing. We promised the kids we would go back when Jordan was 6 and ever since her birthday back in September, they have been asking when we would go back. We booked this trip in January and made all of our Dining reservations months in advance.

Before we left, Noah made sure we measured him to make certain he was above the 40" requirement for many of the rides he wanted to ride.

We again stayed on property, this time, we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside (check out this website for info) http://portorleans.org/. Everything about it was great and we would definitely stay here again. The location was fantastic. We had easy access to all the parks and never had to wait long for bus or boats.

Because it was Spring Break, we expected huge crowds. There were only had 2 days where the crowds became unmanageable and fortunately, our schedules were so well planned, it did not bother us. Our plans were simple. Head to the parks early, do whatever we wanted to do 1st, Fast Pass things we wanted to do twice etc.

There is no way to effectively describe how much fun we had or list everything we did.
We rode every ride in every park and in some cases multiple times.The new favorite: Toy-Story Mania in Hollywood Studios. The kids LOVED it and we rode it 4 times over 2 days at that park.

At the Magic Kingdom, we took advantage of the Extra Magic Hours (7am-3am) and by 10 am we had ridden many rides 2 or 3 times before the park started to get crowded. It was a blast.

Cole was a total thrill seeker. His favorites: Rocking Roller Coaster and Soaring
Noah loved Splash Mountain. Jordan likes rides that run slightly slower and Peter Pan and It's a Small World are her favorites.

Since we had 7 days, we did not have to rush to cram everything in each day. The beauty and benefit of staying on property is that once you have your fill or it gets too crowded, you just go back to the resort and relax. (Hit the pool, arcade, shops or sleep). Once rested, head back and have fun.

Some of the most memorable experiences:

• Breakfast with the Princesses at Epcot
• Co-Piloting the Monorail. - This was awesome
• Jedi Training - Noah was selected to attending the Jedi Training session outside of Star Tours. He successfully completed his Padawan training by defeating Darth Vadar
  

Additionally, This was the 1st time we used the Disney Dining Plan and I can honestly say, it was probably the best decision we've ever made. Laura made all the dining reservations months in advance and we didn't worry about anything once we arrived. Thanks to the allears and wdwinfo websites for all the information.

We tried tried restaurants in each of the main resorts and it was great. We ate at:
the Polynesian, we ate at Ohana (Awesome) and the Kona Cafe
the Wilderness lodge we hit Whispering Canyon
the Grand Floridian we at at the Grand Floridian Cafe
the Contemporary we had a character breakfast at Chef Mickey's
the Animal Kindgom Lodge we at a HUGE breakfast at Boma's (Awesome)

If it was not for the Disney Dining Plan, we would not have tried half of these places and would have likely spent much more on generic meals. Instead, we got to experience all these new places and the food at each was absolutely awesome.

Another cool experience this trip was taking the boat over to Downtown Disney. We made reservations at the T-Rex Cafe and it was a blast. We spent the day at the Animal Kingdom and then took our time heading over to dinner that afternoon. In addition to the Dinosaur sized meals, the kids got to Build a Dino (same concept as Build a Bear) which made the evening a lot of fun for them.

As mentioned above, there was not a single thing we did not do throughout the week. We rode every ride, saw almost all the shows and just had fun. The hardest part of the trip was leaving but we all know..... we'll be back.